The family vacation and the road trip — two American institutions — are attended by a certain tension during this year of pandemic. Will the people at the next gas station or convenience store, in the next town or state, be wearing masks and practicing social distancing, or will they belong to the cult for whom not taking common sense precautions is a political statement? Did I remember to wash my hands after pumping gas last time? What do the numbers say about our destination? A hot spot or no? Cases up or down or on a plateau? One’s own country takes on an alien aspect; it’s been invaded by an invisible enemy, and by no small degree of idiocy.

A year ago, in what now seems a distant age, Leslie, and I planned to visit Yellowstone National Park with my younger son, Marc, his wife, Erin, and their three daughters, Livia, Anna, and Sofia. It would also be a high-school graduation present for the eldest, Livia. We rented a house on the Yellowstone River, about ten miles from the park’s north entrance. The original plan had been to fly to Bozeman, Montana,Marc and Erin and their daughters from Miami, Leslie and I from New York, and rent cars. The Corona virus monkey-wrenched that; Marc and Erin rented an RV and drove 2,700 miles from Florida — an epicenter of the plague — Leslie and I from Connecticut — 2,220 miles — the second cross-country trip we’d made in two months.

We rendezvoused in Gillette, Wyoming, and pressed on through the part of the Great Plains sometimes called “The Big Empty” to Livingston, Montana, and then south down U.S. 89 to the house. It sat above the river, commanding views of the Absaroka mountains, and felt isolated from the America of disease, riots, unemployment lines, and general civil malaise. It felt that way because it was. I am generally allergic to popular national parks simply because they are popular, but the girls’ excitement, seeing bison, elk, and grizzly bears (viewed from a social distance of a quarter-mile) for the first time made the trip worthwhile. Floridians who had never in their young lives seen any landform much higher than an anthill, they also thrilled to the sight of mountains lofty enough to be snow-capped even in August. We hiked, rode horseback, rafted and fished and did not for one minute of that week read, listen to, or watch the news.

That was a month ago, and it, too, now seems a distant age. The pandemic death toll approaches 200,000 in the U.S., protests over racial injustice convulse our cities and towns, and too many citizens, refusing to wear face masks or practice social distancing, or to do anything to acknowledge that a plague is upon the land, keep proving that while ignorance can be overcome with instruction, stupidity lives forever.

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